1. Technical Field
The invention relates to office management. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and system for managing a meeting schedule.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Individual and group scheduling applications are known in the prior art. Such scheduling applications display a person's schedule, indicating free and busy times. The schedules of several people may be compared and the common free times displayed. A meeting may therefore be scheduled at a time when all persons can attend.
The prior art scheduling applications do not take into account other tasks which must be performed by the prospective attendees. For example, an employee requires sufficient time during the week to complete work assignments. However, a person scheduling meetings is frequently not aware of the level of intrusion of such meetings on the schedule owner.
Two problems occur when the time devoted to a task is interrupted. The first problem is that the lost time must be made up to keep the task completion on schedule. This lost time is frequently made up after regular working hours or on weekends. The second problem encountered is attributed to context switching.
Estimates for the amount of time to complete an assignment are typically based on uninterrupted time. Thus, an estimated one hour assignment may be completed in one uninterrupted hour, but not in four separate 15 minute sessions. This is because time is required to become re-oriented to the task, and to begin again. The more interruptions, the greater the deleterious effect on completing the task.
However, the prior art group scheduling packages allow the employee to be scheduled for meetings at any time that has not already been booked for a meeting. In fact, the employee may be double-scheduled for meetings. Much or all of the employee's time may therefore be scheduled, thereby significantly restricting the time available to perform tasks. Therefore, the employee must make up the lost time, despite having scheduled in advance sufficient time to complete the task.
The need has therefore arisen for a scheduling package that gives the schedule owner some control over the amount of interruptions that can be scheduled. The need has also arisen for tracking the amount of time that the schedule owner has to recoup as a result of such interruptions.
It would be an advantage to provide a system and method for scheduling and time management that notifies the scheduler of an infringement on a prospective attendee's time. It would be a further advantage if such system and method permitted group scheduling of meetings. It would be yet another advantage if such method and system permitted a user to dynamically allocate available time for meetings.